For most of us the best lessons in life are learned through the hardest times. When
we are the end of our own abilities and on our knees, humbled, well, then we can
finally hear God, or our conscience, and recognize things in ourselves that we
can't when we're puffed up by our own success, ambition or ego.
Perhaps much the same is true for our nation right now.
Tuesday was hard for many of us to understand. We've lived through four years of
one of the most radical, destructive, and incompetent presidents in our history.
For those of us sheltered in the greater Washington area, propped up by the out
of control government spending, it's hard to capture the real pain in our nation
unless you're traveling around the country. Unemployment and underemployment,housing,
poverty, and every other index that judges the state of our nation's health is simply
a disaster and trending in the wrong direction. The president is also adversarial
to many of his fellow citizens, even in the faith communities, while very solicitous
of the most unsavory elements abroad.
Yet President Obama and his radical left party were rewarded with another four years
to inflict "change" on the nation - rather like a surgeon who took out a spleen
instead of a gall bladder being given the new job as a heart surgeon.
Could it be that as a nation we're not yet on our knees; we're not yet quite ready
to hear what we need to hear? Are times not yet hard enough to get us to listen?
There will be plenty of time to digest this election in the coming weeks and months.
But, already we're hearing about things Republicans have to change according to
the experts; they have to be for amnesty right now, or they have to drop their pro-life
principles and embrace gay marriage, as examples. Others are saying that the party
is too conservative, in spite of the fact that the last two candidates nominated
were moderate to liberal, and both lost.
The reality is already obvious though. A quick look at the data reveals that three
million citizens who voted for John McCain in 2008 didn't go to the polls to vote
for Mitt Romney in 2012, for whatever reason. He simply didn't get the vote out.
Obama did.
But some of us believe there is something larger at work - and we have been preaching
this message to anyone who will listen for some time:
We conservatives, traditionalists, and constitutionalists (even in the faith communities)
must regain the compelling narrative of our core beliefs - along with the will and
the ability to explain how those beliefs make a real difference and improve the
lives of the average American. We have to learn how to take our values into the
marketplace of ideas and connect them to the actual circumstances of life that normal
citizens grapple with every day.
For a generation or more (at least since Reagan) too many of us have simply failed
to put in plain words the clear and persuasive truth that our values are hardwired
into the human heart in the first place, and that the timeless principles of life,
liberty and property represent at once the most practical and the most noble, moral
organization of human affairs. Only rarely do we even speak to or defend the ultimate
truth that the Founders stated - that God, not a government or a fleeting majority
- is the grantor of these human rights and our individual sovereignty and dignity.
It simply isn't enough in our "sound bite" age, to use, as an example, catch phrases
like "free markets" and "pro-growth policies" to stake our claim to being conservative,
when the citizens to whom we're speaking often don't relate those ideas to anything
relevant in their own lives.
While an auto mechanic may have little interest in "free markets," he absolutely
has interest in whether or not the dealership for whom he works remains in business.
A truck driver might not understand how "pro-growth" capital formation works, but
he's very interested in new and more efficient equipment, and increased cargo traffic.
These are the connections that we conservatives have to recognize and present; and
if we don't, we end up with endless campaign disappointments accomplished by small
ideas.
If we in politics and public policy, and the orthodox traditionalists in the faith
communities, can't explain simply the intimate linkage between life, liberty and
property, and how these ideas connect us to our Judeo-Christian heritage and ethic
- which in turn protects and prospers each individual, creates the civil peace,
establishes the rule of law, and brings glory to the "Author of Liberty," then we
will find our voice in the culture eventually reduced to a whisper, and our relevance
confined to the status of fodder for late night comedians.
We are the inheritors of a timeless narrative of life and liberty; the question
raised Tuesday is whether we are ready to tell it to a wanting nation in economic,
spiritual and cultural chaos.
Mike Giere has written extensively on politics, foreign policy, and issues of faith.
He is a former candidate for the US House; worked for Ronald Reagan in 76 & 80;
served in both the Reagan and Bush (41) Administrations. He lives in Virginia with
his wife, and has three children.

#1: You people call yourselves conservatives, but only with your own riches. #2:You blame everything on other leaders when you're the ones who gave us these hard times. #3:You call yourselves Christians of true faith, then "DON'T" follow all of what the Bible teaches. #4: You want to do away with abortion when it was the Republicans in the Supreme Court who voted for women's right to choose. Why hasn't any Republican president, or Republican controlled congress changed the law since Roe V Wade? (over thirty years)

You are all a bunch of politically minded dudes who don't care about "GOD'S PEOPLE." John 8:44 "You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and stayed not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."

All of us are sinners; but you have to admit your wrongs and repent before you can claim faith in God. If not, you're all "FAKES" in God's eyes........

...written by smaller | bigger , January 28, 2013

If you feel the Republicans care if you have a job your sadly mistaken granted in the long run less cash for them but be serious are you really serious before I continue.